The alarm shrilled in my ear at seven o’clock. I grabbed my phone and, with a frown, switched it off, knowing that another alarm would be chiming an hour later giving me plenty of time to get up and get ready for yoga. Relieved, I settled back under the bed covers and slumbered on. What seemed like one minute later, the doorbell rang. What the….? I leapt out of bed, grabbed a pair of trousers and the keys, hot-footed it downstairs and peeped round the curtain to see who was at the door at this ungodly hour. The District Nurse. Oh. Yes. Had forgotten that. That was why I’d set the alarm for seven o’clock. I’ve often heard the expression ‘I’ve slept since then’ and the full significance was there for me this morning in all it’s glory…… eeeh, if only I had a brain, I’d be dangerous.
John made it downstairs just after I’d opened up the door and let the nurse in. Bless him, he was as bleary-eyed as me. I made him a coffee while the antibiotics were being administered at which point he said, “I’m going back to bed after this,” which I thought was a jolly good idea. However, I decided to stay up and tackle a few jobs before yoga.
Of all the jobs I could have chosen (I have a very long list) I selected one of my least favourite. Cooker cleaning. Generally speaking, this job hasn’t been properly tackled since the beginning of the year. It’s one of those jobs that I am very happy to relinquish to A.N. Other, should anyone offer. Historically, well, in recent years, it has been dear Philomena who has regularly cleaned the cooker. Ever proactive, she’d arrive at the front door with special liquids and rubber gloves and plastic bags to contain the oven racks, and she’d set to with enthusiasm. I could never quite understand why this job would be appealing in any way, but Phil always took her duties seriously and was always happy to help and deal with any of my least favourite jobs. Missing her in many ways, but especially missing her when I’ve got to roll my sleeves up and deal with real dirt.
I left the racks soaking in some kind of noxious liquid while I skipped off to yoga, which was a great success once again and I could actually do it. Except one thing, mind you. It appears that my core muscles are missing. Try as I might, I was unable to pull myself up from a lying down position…… ah, it seems that a little more training might be required.
After yoga I came home and did a bit more on the cooker cleaning, but decided, at the last minute, to leave the racks to soak overnight. John got up at lunchtime and thought he’d have a day of rest today, so we sat and chatted for a bit before I got the brunch. This wasn’t as exciting as it might have been, but John just fancied marmalade on toast. So that’s what we had, followed by a banana. We were settled then on our backsides for a bit, until the nurse arrived to deliver the second dose of antibiotics.
I did a few more jobs, but John rested some more on the sofa, armed with a pint glass full of water. This is an attempt to improve his blood pressure, which is rather low. “Anne!” the nurse called from the dining room, “You need to make sure John drinks plenty of water every day.” Oh, right. We’ve been told.
I spent sometime sorting out John’s tablets. We have decided though, that we are going to give in and ask the pharmacy to make up his drugs into monthly blister packs, because the time it takes to set them up is amazingly time-consuming. And there is always the fact that you’ve got some of one sort of drug left over and not enough of another, so we are always playing catch-up and match-up. John took over the job of drug-sorting from me a good while ago now, but he is seriously fed up of doing it. So why not ease the pain, eh?
I think I was watching a bit of Roland Garros, so lost track of time, and prepped our evening meal a bit later than normal. John fell asleep on the sofa, but when he woke up I said dinner would be a bit late. “No worries,” he said, looking at the clock, “we’ll still be in time to Zoom in on the chat with the Uni crew at 7.30.” Right.
There should have just been enough time to eat our meal and whip upstairs to the computer room to get chatting but – there’s often a ‘but’ – I hadn’t bargained on one of the cats bringing me a ‘gift’ into the kitchen. Not sure which cat was trying to please me, although I suspect Rio, but there, in the middle of the doorway was a fledgling pigeon. Definitely dead. Mutilated, in fact. I’ll spare you the gory details. Had to do a bit of cleaning up, didn’t I? Well, we’re going to be a bit late for chatting now.
As it turned out, we were only ten minutes late but had trouble logging on, so we joined in the conversation fifteen minutes in. It was good fun to see everyone though and great to see everyone looking so well – and amazing to think that it’s fifty years since they all met as they settled into halls of residence at Leeds Uni. Some great laughs this evening and, surprise, surprise, John and Pete agreed with each other at least three times today. Heavens, Evans, what’s going on??
A bit more Roland Garros before bed-time (and the gorgeous Nadal) and a nice cup of tea which John made and handed to me before disappearing from the lounge. When he didn’t reappear I thought he must have gone to bed. But no, he was wrestling with the online supermarket ordering system and had decided to see if he could get a shopping slot. He has, but it’s a week away. Uh-oh, it’s started. Loo rolls anyone?
7,143 people infected with the darned virus in the last twenty-four hours; 71 people have died in the community and 26 in hospitals since Sunday. Lockdowns in the Northeast and probably the Northwest sometime later this week. Fun and games, eh? Thought you’d still want to be kept up to date…..
Wherever you are, stay on your toes – watch out, watch out, the virus is still about! God bless.